Having cancer is making me bipolar

December 11, 2013

I’m starting to feel like having cancer is like being bipolar.  My mood changes a lot during the day and is set off regularly by random events.  I know I have cancer, but I feel good - healthy and strong and energetic.  I’m having great workouts with my trainer.  I’m eating healthy.  I’m playing with the kids.  I feel like the same old me, but I know that there is an expiration date to all of that and so always in the back of my head, there is a lingering sort of dread or foreboding .  I also have interactions with the people who “know” in my life and the people who “don’t know” and with both groups it kind of feels like I have to fake being normal.  With the people who know it’s again like I feel really good and I don’t only want to talk about cancer but it is kind if the big thing going on now and with the people who don’t know I feel like I am hiding this big secret.  So whatever I am doing during the day, and regardless of who I am doing it with, it’s like there is a bit of a struggle between the regular normal me and the cancer me or scared me or whatever.  It’s weird and I don’t think I am explaining it very well.

I would also like to add that diagnosing someone with cancer and then making them wait 15 days before they can do ANYTHING about it is the absolute worst  form of hell.  The doctor who diagnosed me told me to expect this, but honest to goodness, every single pain or bump or movement in my body I am like OMG it’s the cancer spreading.  Or like drinking my Starbucks I start to wonder about their cups – are they BPA free, did drinking Starbucks regularly cause my cancer.  Drinking wine at dinner last night, I texted Chris that after I ordered the glass I was like oh shit, I shouldn’t drink this, there is a connection between wine and breast cancer.  But the people I was with at dinner don’t know, and another guy at the table ordered the same wine so he knew it wasn’t bad, and so I was like damn, I’ll drink it, but please please please don’t make the cancer worse!

Anyway, I intended to write about the bipolar nature of my days by writing about my trip to San Jose and the various ups and downs in one 24 hour period.

So Tuesday night when I went to bed, I reminded Natasha that I was not going to be home when she woke up because I was traveling to San Jose for work.  I told her I would miss her.  She lost her mind, started wailing that she didn’t want me to go and she was going to miss me and was there any way I could cancel my trip.  More wailing until she fell asleep.  Then all night she had night terrors, like every hour or two she was screaming at the top of her lungs and flailing about in bed.  OHMYGOD.  Talk about guilt.  I am leaving for one night for the love of god.  I suspect she knows something is up, because this is not usual behavior for her.  Anyway, so when I wake up Wednesday morning at 4:45 (!!!), I am already feeling sensitive about leaving her for the night and my mind gets away from me and I start panicking and feeling really badly about the time I am going to have to take away for treatment and also how I might be too tired to really be there for her.  God, I hope that’s not the case.  I love that girl and I feel like she really needs ME.  Karina on the other hand, while I know she needs me, she is just happy with whomever and I know she won’t miss my presence like Natasha will.  Anyway, morning started with that guilt and sensitivity which perhaps set the path for the rest of the day.

I packed up the car and drove to the airport for my flight, no traffic, great drive, great music, but, as I am parking, Katy Perry’s Roar comes on.  I LOVE that song.  But of course I have seen the versions of the children’s hospital ward lip synching to the song, and the version of the terminal teen singing that song, and so as I park at LAX, singing at the top of my lungs, I just start totally crying.  And I don’t have time for that because I never really get to the airport super early and so I have to get inside to get on my flight.  I take a few breaths, look myself in the mirror and will myself to get it together. 

Walk through the airport, make friends with my fellow travelers in line, and then make the mistake of reading the Susan Love breast book on the flight to San Jose.  Talk about depressing.  I am mostly interested in risk factors.  I know I need to get over myself, but I really want to know WHY I got cancer and what I can do to minimize further risk…but I really don’t have any of the risk factors.  Maybe the wine drinking, but I don’t drink a glass a day, and then I have already written about everything else that I have done right that should have prevented me from getting cancer.  So I keep reading looking for some new enlightening information and land on this:  70% of breast cancer patients have none of the classical risk factors in their background.  Awesome.  Reconfirmation that breast cancer in a lot of ways is random, but also that there is an environmental risk.  So I start thinking about everything again – living in Los Angeles, living close to a refinery, drinking out of Starbucks cups, eating the prepackaged meals from Trader Joes…My mind can keep going down this path for eternity, but basically I am on the plane panicking about the CAUSE again.  So I start scanning through other parts of the book to get my mind off that totally unproductive spiral of doom and the chapters are just making me feel worse and worse – there is even a chapter on living with the recurrence of cancer.  And at that point I am like F*Ck this.  I need to get through THIS before I start thinking about getting it again!!!  And then I just start crying on the plane. Not sobbing, but just crying enough where I have sniffles and am shaking a little and if anyone paid the slightest attention they would see I am crying.  Thankfully there are only like 12 people on my flight and so I am spared the public humiliation, but again I have to talk myself back to sanity and calm the heck down before we land.

I get off the plane and then just sort of get into work mode and the rest of the day was fantastic.  I spent the day with one of the teams I support, and then attended the HR Holiday event and got to meet a bunch of people who I have worked with for years but never met in person, and then we had a team building event at the Christmas in the Park in San Jose and had dinner at Mortons’s.  We were out til 11:00 and during that entire period, like 8 am – 11 PM, I really didn’t even think about cancer (with the exception of the few minutes explained below).  Thank goodness for work and great work colleagues. 

Before flying up, I had told one of the guys on our team that I had been diagnosed bc I was not sure I was going to make it to the offsite, so walking to dinner he started asking me about treatment.  We were with a whole team of people, and so another work friend was close enough by to hear the conversation and so I told him, and he told me that another Cisco coworker, an incredible, driven, smart woman who I have worked with for 6 years who is probably the same age as me was also diagnosed last week.  Again, F*CK cancer.  Stupid piece of crap dregs of the earth cancer.  I need to reach out to this other woman so we can form a beat the shit out of stupid cancer alliance.  But damn, WHY? 

After dinner, I head back to the hotel and start writing this blog and then I am just exhausted and fall asleep before finishing it.  Again, win for me, bc I slept great and had no cancer panic.   Today is a new day and so far so good, but I suspect this struggle with moods may be an ongoing thing so apologies in advance.

I also want to thank EVERYONE for the kind messages, gifts, flowers, invitations, offers to help, stories of survivors, laughs, perspective, and encouragement.  Every single person who I have told has been incredible, like they each had a unique “how to respond to a cancer diagnosis” guide that was just perfect and touching for my relationship with that specific person.   I really appreciate every single contact and will continue to keep you all posted as we learn more about treatment path and timing.  I am sure we are going to need help especially with the girls, so thank you for the may offers for playdates and babysitting.  I know we will be taking you up on those.

Here’s to hoping today and the days moving forward are less filled with tears and mood swings and more filled with healing and laughter.

Thanks for reading.

Sherri